


The Fifth Day of Christmas

by Winklepicker



Series: 12 Days of Christmas [5]
Category: Ex Machina (2015), Midnight Special (2016), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Eavesdropping, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Smut, Mildly Dubious Consent, for the eavesdropping, just a bit, kylux adjacent, sevsmith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 18:12:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17606390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winklepicker/pseuds/Winklepicker
Summary: On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Fiiiiiiiiiive wanks in a cheap inner city hoteeelllll





	The Fifth Day of Christmas

He really hadn’t meant to. The first night in the hotel, Paul had done his best to ignore it. He’d put his headphones on and blasted the white noise. That was fine. Just dandy, until he wanted to roll over and actually sleep. He’d taken them off in perfect time to hear a long, deep, obscenely growly climax. Moans that made the very air shiver, and him with it.

Paul ground his teeth together, breathed through his whistling nose. He had an early morning tomorrow so his half hard cock had better get used to disappointment and go to sleep. He gave himself a hard scratch and rolled over.

A slamming door woke him before his alarm. Lord he hated hotels. Annoyed and hardly awake he lumbered into the shower. The shudder of the old pipes made him think of the sounds from last night and a flush of warmth ran through his skin. 

A few unenthusiastic tugs later, Paul gave an irritated grunt, washed the soap off his body and gave up delaying work for the day. Because what he loved most was a week of useless team building exercises when his inbox was groaning under real work. 

The day passed in a molasses-slow wade through listening exercises, half-dry markers on oversized butcher’s paper and—to Paul’s horror—a drumming circle.

Now he sipping his fourth G and T with an unsteady hand, wondering if he’d spent a polite enough amount of time at the evening drinks.

“Could I get a Gansett, please?”

Paul’s eyes slipped to the side, travelled up a long slim back bent over the bar, up to a splash of strawberry blond hair. They slid back down the slippery-dip of that back to settle on the kind of mythical ass he’d dreamed of but never had.

A small cough brought him back into the room and he looked up to see a pair of green eyes under that golden mop, an eyebrow tilted in amusement.

“Hi.”

Paul flushed and looked away. He was drunker than he thought. He was drunk and he was an ogler. He pushed off his stool, stumbled. A steadying hand grabbed his arm, gave it a soft squeeze. 

“Woah there.”

“Sorry. I’m, I’m… Sorry.” Paul skittered out of the bar, back to the safety of his room.

The street lights painted a glowing orange on the curtains, splashed a wide swathe of light across the ceiling. The bed was moving. He almost never drank and this, he remembered, was why.

His eyes were leaden when the next door opened and slammed shut. He rolled his eyes, folded his hands over his belly, and tried to drift off again. The steady hum of the street below was lulling him closer to slumber, but then. Then. 

It started soft and quiet. The sort of soft you’re not sure you heard so you listen more intently. There it was again. A quiet _ahh_ and a soft hum. 

Paul knew what was coming, he even snorted at his own pun. He reached out, fumbling for his phone and headphones on the bedside table. His hand slapped about, sought out anything he could reach. He found nothing and flopped back with a resigned huff and a dizzy head. 

That was enough effort he reasoned. He’d tried. More effort than his neighbor put into being quiet. He’d have to listen now, while trying to kid himself that he was helpless and horrified at his situation. Sure, his blood was row-row-rowing merrily south and raising a small mountain beneath the sheets. But it felt better to delude himself into being inconvenienced than to admit to willingly eavesdropping.

So as one hand untangled itself from the other and began the slow slink down, he reminded himself that he really had tried to find his headphones. He’d even almost bothered to switch the light on.

A quick burst of frantic muffled moans rang out as his fingers found his cock. He hissed at the cold skin meeting hot. It’s not as if he knew the person next door. And if they were going to be so obnoxiously loud, well. All he was doing was taking care of a natural reaction. 

The mistake he made was settling in without anything to wet his way. He was not going to chafe his way through this and if last night was anything to go by, his neighbour would be going for quite a while. 

Paul was invested now. He rolled out of the bed, hoping to find lotion in the bathroom. He shed his clothes, kicking his boxers off and peeling out his t-shirt. He was hard as glass, horny as a ram, and in the middle of not giving a single flying salted caramel fudge.

He never made it back to the bed. Instead he thumped on the bottom of the tiny bottle of moisturizer he’d found, splattering a glob into his hand. Next door was now ha-ah-ah-ing in a rising crescendo. Paul bucked his hips in an uncoordinated dance into one slick fist, his other hand and his forehead pressed against the wall. 

He closed his eyes and turned his head. Every sound crystallised. The neighbour’s throaty moans vibrated down Paul’s chest, as though hot lips were breathing those moans right into the ear pressed against the wall. A soft-sweet chuckle surprised him. The sound rippled out, teased his nipples with invisible fingers, ran down, tickled and shivered up his heated shaft. 

His splayed palm clenched into a fist. He was there. So close. He tipped his head back, dragged his lips against the wall, tried to bite his way into the next room. 

He should have been ready—wasn’t ready—when the wave crashed. The gentle sound of his own come splattering on the wall was too much. His body shuddered, bumping his chest against the wall. 

With a whimper of relief, he slid down to his knees, turned and flopped down with his legs out. He grimaced when his back settled on the cold mess he’d made on the wall. It was when his breath was no longer heaving that he noticed the silence. 

A litany of shit-shit-shit-shit-shit ran through his mind. His neighbour must have heard. Of course he had. Did he know what Paul had been doing? As though in answer, he heard it again. A soft laugh, then quiet humming, gasping, then silence. He stayed slumped on the floor, not daring to move until his bladder forced him up.

 

Paul was not an easily distractable man. Not usually. But the next day found him zoning out of so many bonding sessions he decided he needed to skip the rest of the afternoon or risk falling into madness. 

He grabbed sandwiches from the buffet, wrapped them in napkins and shoved them in his satchel. He was checking over his shoulder as he slunk out when he collided with something, almost toppling backwards. 

His hands instinctively fisted into the shirt of a man whose own hands shot out to steady him, landing around Paul’s waist and shoulder. Sea-foam green eyes went from rounded surprise to glistening twinkle. 

“Oh, it’s you.” The pretty blond gave a soft nervous laugh, a shy smile. 

A shiver ran up Paul’s spine to smack him on the back of the head. That laugh. Where had he…?

“Maybe lay off the booze before noon.”

Paul didn’t look down. Just because he’d named this guy Mr. Ass Perfect didn’t mean he had to leer.

“I, no. I don’t. I mean, I haven’t been drinking.”

Ass Perfect dropped his hands. It was probably time for Paul to stop fisting Ass Perfect’s shirt. He really wished he didn’t have to. He really wished he hadn’t thought of fisting.

“God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to imply...”

Paul realised his mouth was hanging open. He snapped it shut.

“Shit. Sorry.” Ass Perfect shuffled his feet and scratched the back of his neck.

He really did have the sweetest smile, and his eyes scrunched just so. And Paul didn’t know what to do with the man’s lips but he did know they were just as perfect as his ass was and thus dangerous levels of infuriating. 

“Are you this clumsy all the time?” That nervous soft laugh again. Paul’s tired mind realised what he was hearing seconds before a tide of blood flooded his face in a blush.

“I’m really sorry, I was teasing. I’ll just...” Ass Perfect was backing away, looking around for an exit. “Okay. Take care.”

“My name’s Paul Sevier!” Smooth. Paul pushed his glasses up. Real smooth. 

Ass Perfect paused his retreat. He turned back, biting his damn perfect bottom lip, the tips of his ears were glowing red. Paul decided right there that he was utterly screwed. 

“Nice to meet you, Paul.” Paul’s huge mitt reached out to swallow the dainty hand Ass Perfect stuck out. “I’m Caleb. Smith.”

 

They spent the afternoon wandering the hotel grounds, strolling past shuttered out-of-businesses downtown, sitting in a weedy, litter-strewn park sharing the squashed sandwiches Paul had nicked, and the mini burritos Caleb had purloined. They spoke of algorithms, logic systems, of the strange fishy smell in a city miles from any decent water. 

Caleb had quickly climbed toward the top of Paul’s list of people he enjoyed talking to. That was a small and exclusive list. Though not as small and exclusive at the list of people Paul wanted to rub himself all over. Caleb was firmly on that list too.

They returned as the sun was disappearing in the west. The elevator muzak happily butchered _Stand By Your Man_ while Paul and Caleb stood side-by-side, knuckles a gnat’s breath from brushing against each other.

“Hey, you’re on the 12th floor? I’m on the 12th floor.” Caleb had bumped his shoulder when they collided fingers pressing the button.

“Ha.” Paul tried to reign in another blush and the swell in his gut of looming embarrassment. “No kidding?” The doors pinged open. 

“We’ve probably passed each other so many times.” Caleb grinned at him. 

How Paul was holding back from falling and drowning himself in that mouth was a mystery to him. “Probably.” 

Maybe he could pretend he’d forgotten his keycard, run back to the lobby. Or keep walking when Caleb stopped at his room. Or just fucking well invite himself into Caleb’s room and to hell with it all. Too late he realised they’d stopped walking. 

“Well, this is us.” Caleb pulled his card out.

“Us?” A double major from MIT, another degree at Johns Hopkins, and halfway to a doctorate, Paul had never felt so dumb.

“Yeah,” Caleb waved one distracted hand at Paul’s door as he concentrated on swiping into his.

A panicked litany of fuck-fuck-fuckity-fuck-fuck whispered in Paul’s head as he stood frozen, staring at his room number. He heard that quiet laugh again, saw a hand waving in front of his eyes. 

“You know what?” The hand stopped waving opting for gliding down his neck and getting a grip of his collar. “If you’re tired of listening, you can come watch as well,” the hand tugged, “if you like.”

Paul followed that tug, eyes focussed on those pretty teeth biting again at that perfect lip. He did like. He really, really liked. 

“It’s my turn now.” Caleb pulled him in, bumping the door open with his hip. “I want to hear everything.”


End file.
